Come awake!” a guttural voice speaking in the tongue of the Comanche ordered Jacob. The sharp point of some weapon pricked the flesh of his cheek.
Jacob sat up with a surge, his hand darting out for his pistol. But the Colt was gone, and so, too, were his knife and rifle.
An Indian squatted close by in the morning dusk. He held a fourteen-foot battle lance, steel headed from half a soldier’s saber, pointed directly at the white man.
Jacob froze in place. The hatred in the Comanche’s smoky bronze face was ugly to behold. Only a trifling motion from Jacob would trigger the Indian to strike with the lance.
The warrior did not stir. The only movement about him was a thick vein pulsing in his forehead just below a twisted, red cloth cord that encircled his head. The cloth was from a Mexican soldier’s uniform.
Jacob ignored the few drops of blood that dripped from his cheek. He held his gaze unwavering, locked on the black liquid eyes of the Indian. Minutes slid past, endlessly long.
As Jacob waited, he evaluated the Comanche. The warrior’s face was broad with a large, flaring nose. He was slightly undersized and leanly sinewed over heavy bones. He wore only a breechcloth and moccasins with leggings tied above the knees.
His left arm up near the shoulder had recently healed from a bad wound. A sunken spot where a bullet or some sharp weapon had deeply punctured the flesh was puckered and purplish, marring the perfect flow of muscle. Yet that didn’t seem to lessen the man’s obvious strength. Jacob believed he’d have little chance to get past the war lance and overpower the Comanche.
The man arose in one fluid motion. His lance reached out to touch the two scalps Jacob had placed on a rock in the night to dry.
“White man’s hair. Did you kill these men?”
“Yes,” answered Jacob in the Indian language.
“Why? White men do not take other white men’s scalps when they kill them.”
“Because I hated them for what they did to me.”
“What harm did they do that made you kill them?” questioned the Indian.
“They murdered my family and wife while I was not there to protect them.”
A momentary flicker of some deep emotion passed over the Comanche’s features. It was quickly hidden.
“Were they alone, just these two?”
“When I found them, they were. But they were with other men before.” Jacob pointed at the many tracks on the bank of the creek. “These two who lost their scalps stayed behind. Now I’ll catch and kill these others who are riding south.” Jacob thought the Comanche knew more than he pretended.
“Are they also your enemies?” Jacob asked.
“They are my enemies. And only because you had two of their scalps did I not run my lance through you in your sleep.”
“Why do you trail them?”
The Comanche lowered his lance. “The leader and some of the men are scalp hunters for the Mexicans. The governor of Chihuahua pays gold for the scalps of my people, the Comanche, and also for the scalps of the Apache. He gives gold even for the murder of children. How many times has your family been slain?”
“Once,” replied Jacob, surprised by the question.
The Indian held up three fingers. “Three times white men have destroyed my wife and children. My sorrow is threefold greater than yours.”
The Comanche fell silent a moment. His eyes stabbed down at the tracks. “This band of murderers, part of them, are responsible for two of those attacks on my tepee. They must not be allowed to do such deeds again. I, like you, will catch and slay them.”
Jacob felt his own poignant sadness. How awful to lose your woman and be all alone. Yet the Indian had experienced it three times. Jacob examined more closely the face of the Comanche. Beneath the hate that glinted iron-hard from the man, Jacob saw the soul-bending anguish in him.
“You and I shouldn’t fight,” Jacob said. “Together we would be doubly strong and would win the battle with our foes.”
As the Comanche pondered Jacob’s suggestion he gazed to the south along the fresh traces on the worn wagon road. He glanced back at Jacob. “They take your sheep and cattle and drive them to the land of the Texans. What will you do about that?”
“The livestock means nothing to me. I must run these men to earth.”
“Before your rancho, they take many animals from the rancho on the Gallinas River.”
“That would be the Bautista rancho. What of the people at the rancho?”
“All dead. I found the big grave that holds them all. The scalp hunter thinks he hides it, but I found it.”
Jacob jerked, startled at the news that the Indian had found a grave. “Did you find a grave at my rancho?”
“I did not search. However, I believe the murderers would do the same thing—hide the bodies.”
The Indian studied Jacob. “I must be the one that slays the chief of the scalp hunters,” he said.
“Your grievance against this man is greater than mine. You can kill him. But should you fail to take his life, then I will complete the task.”
The Comanche laughed, his mirth hoarse and ghastly, like a raven’s croak. “Four moons now I have hunted the man that slays women and children. He thinks me shot and drowned in the Rio Pecos. But, you see, he is wrong. I am alive and healed. Several times I almost catch him when he goes to Chihuahua to sell the scalps. But he leaves there very fast, with the Mexican cavalry after him. So I cannot get near to him. Then I follow him far to the east, among many white men. That was very dangerous for me. But now he has returned to my land of the great Llano Estacado and the Rio Pecos.
“I have only one goal before I die, to take this man’s life. I shall not fail to do that.”
Jacob visualized the silent Indian in pursuit of the white man through all the many days and across hundreds of miles of Mexican desert and Texas plains. How had he managed that without losing the trail in the rain and wind, and more difficult still, in the countless horse tracks near the cities? The Comanche must be an unmatched tracker, even among his own people.
“What is your name?” Jacob asked.
“High Walking. What is yours?”
“Jacob.”
The Comanche warrior nodded curtly. He strode to his horse, a Mexican Cavalry mount, and climbed into the saddle. He fastened the lance along the horse’s side to point upward and backward at a slant. A quiver of arrows, jasper-tipped and winged with hawk feathers, and a powerful war bow were taken from where they hung on the pommel of the saddle. The quiver was slid over his shoulder to hang down his back. He held the bow in his hand. With a touch of rein the Comanche’s horse left at a fast lope.
Jacob hastened to pack his bedroll and retrieve his weapons, lying nearby on the ground where the Comanche had placed them. He overtook High Walking, and under a new sun breaking loose from the far horizon, they sped south beside the Rio Pecos.
* * *
The blazing sun tortured the earth and the creatures of the earth. No wind stirred to carry away the heat, and it lay on the surface of the ground like liquid gravity.
Jacob and High Walking rode doggedly south beneath the fireball. Directly under their feet, the tracks of the raiders always led onward. Through eyelids hammered down to a squint by the brutal sun, they warily watched for an ambush. Both men knew that somewhere ahead, a rear guard of the outlaws could be waiting in hiding to kill them.
The land was changing as they traveled, gradually flattening, the soil becoming sandy. The grass was shorter and beginning to lose its greenness. The flowers of the cacti had died and turned brown. A multitude of yellow bean pods were ripening on the slender limbs of the mesquite.
On the left, the meandering Rio Pecos flowed in a wide, swampy valley choked with water-greedy phreatophyte grasses, sedges, and brush. Large cottonwoods lined the banks, elbowing each other for space in which to sink their roots. The horsemen passed many abandoned river oxbows lying half full of dead water, as gray and dull as lead.
Near midday the river curved steeply away to the west, and the road led down to a gravelly ford. The men stopped in the shade of a cottonwood at the edge of the water. The horses lowered their heads and sucked noisily, slaking their thirst.
For several minutes Jacob and High Walking cautiously evaluated the dense stand of brush and trees on the far side of the two-hundred-foot strip of open water. To be caught in that flat, exposed surface by riflemen would mean death. Still, they had to move on. They glanced up and down the stream. The muck and mire and rank grass and brush of the swampy river extended in both directions as far as they could see. There would be quicksand in many places.
High Walking emitted a short, aggravated hiss. “I go. You stay,” he said. “Help me with your rifle if our enemies are there.”
Without waiting for an answer, he kicked his mount into the water. Jacob saw him unlimber his war bow and draw an arrow from the quiver. He nocked the shaft. Jacob lifted his rifle to a ready position for a quick shot.
The river deepened to touch the belly of the Comanche’s horse, then became more shallow.
Suddenly High Walking struck his mount with the bow and let out an earsplitting shriek. The animal leapt forward, throwing water for yards. Indian and steed drove into the trees on the riverbank.
A handful of minutes passed, and High Walking returned to the water’s edge. He motioned Jacob to cross.
“Next time you go first,” High Walking said, his face grim.
* * *
The hacienda sat in a grassy meadow above the flood line of the Rio Pecos. All the doors and shutters were closed.
Jacob went silently to the front entry. He tripped the lock and kicked wide the door. With pistol drawn, he burst inside.
His eyes swiveled, scouring the big, shadowy room and the several hallways leading off to the recesses of the hacienda. The echoes of his noisy entrance died away. There remained only the complete quietness of a house deserted.
The structure was less than half the size of the Solis hacienda, and he finished his investigation in a brief time. As far as he could determine, all of the ranchers’ major furnishings and possessions appeared to be intact. Again, as at the Solis hacienda, he saw none of the smaller, valuable articles that Mexican households normally contained.
Jacob detected some storage chests and drawers askew, as if someone had searched among them. It was odd that the bandits hadn’t damaged or carried off more items. The band was organized, with the leader maintaining tight control. Such a disciplined, almost military band of men would be dangerous to attack.
He left the house and began to search the yard. The ground was heavily marked with the fresh tracks of horses’ hooves and heeled boots. He found a pool of dried blood. “Goddamn,” he cursed.
High Walking came into sight riding his horse up the bank of the Pecos. The Indian was little interested in the Mexican people of the rancho and had ridden off to seek out the route the raiders had taken.
“They take many sheep and cows and go that way.” High Walking pointed to the east. “The same direction they took from all the other ranchos.”
“To Texas,” Jacob said. “Did all the riders go the same way?”
“No, only five or six. The others go down the river.”
“There is one more rancho there.”
“I know,” said the Comanche. “I have seen it, nearly a day’s ride from here. It is a small rancho with few people.”
“These tracks are a day old. That means the raiders could have attacked that rancho this morning, or perhaps even as early as last evening.”
High Walking shrugged his shoulders. “I think we will be too late to warn the people. But the Texas banditos are getting farther and farther ahead of us. We must ride swiftly.”
“I agree.” Jacob mounted his horse.
The two riders crossed the river and swung south. The horses picked up into a trot, a jarring ride, hard on the riders, but a pace the animals could maintain for miles.
The sun grew old, turned blood-red, and vanished into the bottomless pit behind the rim of the world. The shadows of twilight crawled out of the hollows. A million mosquitoes rose up from their daytime resting place in the river marsh. They swarmed upon the horsemen.
Jacob batted the buzzing black insects from his face with a hand. He glanced at High Walking. The bloodsucking pests were a black fog around the nearly naked Comanche. The man ignored the mosquitoes, his sight picking out the hoofprints of the Texan marauders from the blackness settling over the ground.
Jacob looked to the west at a hill silhouetted against the darkening sky. He pointed and called to High Walking. “Up there a wind may be blowing and could keep the mosquitoes off us. Let’s water the ponies and go see.”
The Comanche grunted something Jacob could not make out. He halted his mount and allowed it to drink beside Jacob’s.
They traveled directly away from the river, climbing upward to the crown of the small rocky hill. Near the top the Indian angled away, and without a word, he disappeared into the night.
Jacob found a spot where the wind had the mosquitoes swept clear. He hobbled his horse and spread his blanket.
Jacob lay sifting the ashes of his memory of Petra, seeking those bright moments of pleasure with her. But the gloomy thoughts came swiftly and lay heavily upon him. Never again would he be able to hold her and find joy in the comfort she gave him.
He turned from his bleak thoughts and listened to the night. A bird roosting somewhere below in the brush crooned like an old woman. To the east, far out on the Llano Estacado, a desert wolf gave his weird and wavering call. Jacob drifted off into sleep.
Sometime in the night Jacob came awake in a second, and his hand closed on the butt of his revolver. The echo of a sad, heart-rending cry from the Comanche filled the darkness. He listened for the sound to come again.
The Indian made no further noise. Yet Jacob sensed the man’s wakefulness out there somewhere in the blackness. Jacob didn’t know where the Indian had finally lain down. That was not good. Whether he liked the Comanche’s presence or not, closer attention must be paid to him.